400 Attend Lincoln Tea Party @ State Capitol April 11

I am continuing to add to this post but am starting with the videos and graphics referenced.

First I will fill in what we meant to show and then I will talk about some of the things that came up as we “flew by the seat of our pants”.

Why a Tea Party?

Rick Santelli’s “rant” on the Chicago Board of Trade floor on February 19, 2009 ignited a movement:

Rick Santelli’s statements resounded not only with the workers behind him. They resounded across country, but most especially online, and particularly on Twitter.

Members of an online group began discussion on Twitter about attempting to hold Tea Parties in as many cities as possible. “Let’s roll!” was the theme of the tweets the evening of the 19th.

Meanwhile American Specator’s managing editor J.P. Fererir had decided to hold a Tea Party in Washington, D.C. at NOON the following Friday because of the annual the CPAC convention.

Ultimately, this all resulted in a conference call of a dozen members of the Twitter group. They determined to work towards at least ten Tea Parties nationwide to run simultaneously with Ferarie’s event. The participants in the call either all agreed to organize a tea party in their own city or they agreed to help coordinate overall, or both.

A conference call was held each day, with a growing number of participants who were organizing a party. The number of cities exceeded ten by Sunday afternoon. By Monday, there were over two dozen people on the conference call, on Wednesday, over thirty.

On Friday, February 27th, there were tea parties in over 45 cities, some having been organized independently of the conference call based group. Various attendance estimates have come in as low as 15,000 and as high as 30,000. Almost all of the events occurred simultaneously at 11AM central.

The phenomenon received little national press coverage, but there was much attention by local media where organizers worked at it.

MSNBC and Fox News channel did spend some time on the events that day, particularly Neal Cavuto.

Paul Williams put together an excellent video encapsulating the Tea Party events:

The whole Tea Party “movement” inspired many videos and songs, like the “Tea Party Anthem” [artist name coming]

But what was it that inspired the whole thing in the first place, what was Rick Santelli talking about?

For those still sleeping, so to speak, the TARP / aka Bailout bill last fall served as the “come to Jesus moment”.

Even more realized during the debate about the “Stimulus” Bill.

Front and center in that debate was Nebraska’s own Senator Ben Nelson. The most bothersome thing that Sen. Nelson said leading up to the vote on the Stimulus Bill was, “It’s not the amount that bothers me.”

George Bush & the Free Market

Maxine Waters…Socialism

Barack Obama’s position on the Constitution:

Additional Videos:
Scare Tactics Used to Get Stimulus Passed

video

Previews of results of HR 1388:

This video was sent

Problems with education:

video

Didn’t get the handouts from the Tea Party or want to print out more?

Here are downloadable formats of the items given out at the April 11 Lincoln Tea Party:

If you are going to be attending a meeting or an event here in Nebraska and would like handout these items at your gathering, please contact me as I will carry a supply of these printouts for anyone’s use. They are not dated and simply reference “today’s event” not a Tea Party specifically.